Tire ideas

[BrianG]

Originally Posted by JThiessen

...Brian - just glue the living snot out of them, run it through the dirt and get some good road rash on the sides of the tires. Then never clean them. Good to go!

But I just got a new Viper body for my GTP (my absolute favorite car of all time - particularly the 90's models before they turned into Vette wannabes) and want the wheels to be pretty too. Seriously, the rear tires literally ripped apart the rear end of the stock body (Porsche) due to ballooning, and then when the tire ripped apart. I want to avoid that if possible because bodies this large are not cheap. As a matter of fact, my butt still hurts from what they charged from getting the Viper body. I mean, really; $45 for a press formed piece of this lexan??? That's just wrong any way you look at it!

What's_nitro: I did think of that. Basically, put in a few sheets of f-glass cloth and then enough f-glass resin to liberally coat the inside of the tire and spin in continuously until it cures. That should provide a nice 1/16"-1/8" thick coat of resin to stiffen the whole tire without adding as much weight as totally filling it.

I also thought about getting some plastidip (in a can, not the spray) and pouring it in there, but I don't think it will ever harden. I need something that needs to be mixed so it cures via chemical reaction rather than air-dry seeing as it will be contained inside the tire and airflow is minimal if any.

[redshift]

Originally Posted by BrianG

What's_nitro: I did think of that. Basically, put in a few sheets of f-glass cloth and then enough f-glass resin to liberally coat the inside of the tire and spin in continuously until it cures. That should provide a nice 1/16"-1/8" thick coat of resin to stiffen the whole tire without adding as much weight as totally filling it.

I also thought about getting some plastidip (in a can, not the spray) and pouring it in there, but I don't think it will ever harden. I need something that needs to be mixed so it cures via chemical reaction rather than air-dry seeing as it will be contained inside the tire and airflow is minimal if any.

Even if you were able to distribute the resin or whatever evenly, you'd still have flimsy sidewalls. That would mean still running foams or using sprayfoam, both of which I think the point here is to avoid. Sprayfoam would probably require at least 4 holes inside the rim to get close to even, unless it was done first as mentioned. Still there is almost no way you'd be able to have both a balanced wheel and one that runs true... it seems to me. Balancing would be more difficult with either of the above ideas, I think, than it would be to do the old way. I've given quite a lot of thought to this and keep coming up empty.

Now if someone could make a sub-carcass type of molded piece that the tire glued onto completely (or almost completely) and then the tire & molded carcass assembly was glued onto the rim, maybe that would be something. Need something like thin lexan, but something that would not be attacked by the various glues.

And there would be many profiles for someone to have to mold for the various tire inners. The various shapes and sizes could be semi-universal I suppose but who is gonna invest in the idea......

Really shouldn't be this difficult

[simplechamp]

Originally Posted by BrianG

I also thought about getting some plastidip (in a can, not the spray) and pouring it in there, but I don't think it will ever harden. I need something that needs to be mixed so it cures via chemical reaction rather than air-dry seeing as it will be contained inside the tire and airflow is minimal if any.

I thought maybe if you wanted to use a compound that required air drying you could use a small aquarium air pump and tubing. The pump would blow air through the tubing into one of the wheel vents and it would escape from the other vent. Constant flow of air to cure the plasty-dip.

However figuring out how to make this work while the tire is rotating? That's another story...